Heaven Right Here Read online

  As the driver turned into the parking lot, Darius turned to see some of the protesters walking in a scattered circle, while others walked back and forth across the street. When he turned back around, his eye caught the head of security, Greg, talking into his two-way and hurrying across the street toward the chaos.

  “I should go knock the wig off that bitch!” Bo snapped. “In fact, let me out of this car. She don’t know who—”

  “Bo, please,” Darius said as he wrestled Bo’s hand away from the door handle. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  “But she’s calling you a rapist, baby. That shit ain’t right!”

  “Don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing you upset.” Darius sighed. “I guess coming to church wasn’t such a good idea after all. Drive around to the executive offices, Wayne. I’ll speak with Derrick and then we can ride on.”

  Darius was quickly ushered into Derrick’s office. He caught a few eyes of pity; others wouldn’t look at him at all. He felt like getting a shirt that read I’M INNOCENT, but at the end of the day he knew people were going to believe what they wanted.

  “Man, do you see what’s going on out there?” Darius asked Derrick as soon as he was inside the office.

  “I just found out,” Derrick said. He wearily rubbed his brow. “Have a seat, man.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?”

  “The you-know-what just hit the fan this past week. Mrs. Anderson and I had a meeting. She barged in with all sorts of outrageous demands, including a list of people in the church she thought were gay she insisted I kick out of the church. She accused me of taking your side in the rape case and wanted me to testify on behalf of her daughter, who, outside of church, I barely know. When I said no to her ultimatums, she resigned her membership from the church and told me I’d be sorry I crossed her. I guess this is what she meant.”

  “I’m sorry, Pastor, this has gotten crazy.”

  “It’s not your fault. Melody is the one I want to talk to. But Mrs. Anderson refuses to bring her in. Well, now it doesn’t matter, because they’re no longer members of this church. And if you want to know the truth, I think this was just an excuse for Mrs. Anderson to remove her membership. She’s had a dislike for me since I took over this church ten years ago, was opposed to me changing the name from Good Lord Baptist to Kingdom Citizens. She resents when I teach the prosperity message, wasn’t too happy when we changed the music to have a more contemporary flow, and fought Vivian’s creation of the Sanctity of Sisterhood.”

  “How can any woman be against SOS? It’s one of the most popular conferences in the country!”

  “Oh, she was all for it until Vivian refused to make her president or give her a role with status.”

  “If she was so unhappy, why didn’t she leave a long time ago?”

  “Mr. Anderson. He’s been here even longer than Bernadette. I think his mother went to this church. He finally agreed to leave, but I wonder if deep down he has doubts as to what his daughter told them.”

  “If he doesn’t, he should,” Darius said. “That’s one of the reasons I came here today—that and actually go to church, which, considering the chaos outside, is definitely not going to happen. But I’m here because we now know who’s in the video.”

  Derrick’s brows shot up in question.

  “Shabach.”

  “Shabach? How do you know?”

  “Someone who’s been intimate with Shabach recognized a tattoo on his lower back.”

  “And will this person testify?”

  “My lawyers are working on that now. Of course Shabach is denying everything, and unless Melody admits it’s him, it’s hard for us to force him to cooperate. We’re just hoping it’s enough to get the system off my back. So I can get my life back.”

  “Yeah, man, I heard they pulled you from the Stellar awards show and also from the Nation’s Family Reunion lineup. The bible says judge not, but people can’t help it, and they don’t want to be guilty by association.”

  “I understand.”

  “Is it affecting record sales?”

  Darius nodded. “A little bit. But I’m trying to ignore most of the madness, stay focused on my album about to drop next year. In fact, I’d been stuck creatively; this fiasco has unleashed a torrent of emotions I think will make this one of my best efforts yet.”

  “Oh, yeah? You got a name for it yet?”

  Darius looked his pastor in the eye. “I’m thinking about From Trial to Triumph.”

  The dark gray sedan pulled up to the curb in an area of Atlanta called Little Five Points. Two men got out of the car and walked up to the business that shared the block with a record store and pizza place. Its front looked like a Tahitian hut with colorful letters spelling out the name URBAN TRIBE.

  The two walked inside. “Hey, Bastard, what’s up?”

  Anyone listening may have thought the man behind the counter would get offended, but that’s what he called himself—Philthy Bastard. The goateed, earring-wearing redhead nodded his head in greeting and reached out for a soul-brother handshake.

  “What’s crackin’, ’Bach?” he asked pleasantly.

  “The world’s still mine,” Shabach replied. “I need you to hook me up on some business. I need you to remove a tattoo and then cover the spot with another so no one can see the other ever existed. Can you do that?”

  “Can you rap?”

  Shabach smiled. “Yes, I can.”

  “Then that’s my answer.”

  57

  The Truth

  Bernadette Anderson was tired. At fifty-nine, she was way too old to be trying to rein in a teenager with fire between her legs. She hadn’t wanted to believe the things she’d heard about her Melody, had sworn to defend her to the death. And she’d believed her daughter, even when her intuition thought otherwise. But the anonymous package she’d just received in the mailbox could not be ignored.

  “Melody, I’m asking you for the final time, and you’d better not lie to me: did you write a note to one of Kingdom’s members?”

  Melody sulked as she weighed her answer. Normally a few tears and a cute pout were enough to get her old, out-of-touch mother off her back. What would that old fogy know about love, much less sex? Melody was still convinced that she might have been a product of artificial insemination!

  “Mommy, I … Okay, I did write the note. But it was just a joke! A joke my friends and I were playing on Tony because he—”

  “Tony?” Mrs. Anderson finally showed Melody one of the photocopies that had been included in the package she’d just received. “According to the letter, this note was given to Darius Crenshaw, the man you said raped you. Now who’s Tony?”

  Melody had assumed the note her mother possessed was one of several she’d left on Tony’s car. She never imagined that Darius would have kept the note she’d had delivered to him the night of the party.

  “You remember Tony, my friend at school? I thought you found one of the notes I wrote to him.”

  “I didn’t find this note, Melody. It came in the package that was delivered by special messenger this afternoon. Now did you write it or not?”

  “I didn’t write a note to Darius.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “But you wrote one to Tony, your classmate at school.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What class do y’all have together?”

  “English,” Melody hastily replied, telling the lie without missing a beat.

  The letter in the package said Melody had written notes both to Darius Crenshaw and Tony Johnson, a professional football player, and that a handwriting analysis confirmed that both notes, as well as a copy of a school English assignment, were by the same writer. The English assignment had been turned in by Melody Anderson and according to the letter, had been obtained through one of Melody’s classmates.

  Bernadette Anderson didn’t know whether it was Darius, Tony, the person who’d written t
he letter, or her daughter, but somebody was lying. She leaned back against the door, needing its support to ask the final question.

  “Melody, did that man Darius rape you like you said he did?”

  Melody’s pout deepened into a frown. “Why do you keep asking me that? It was hard enough him sticking that dirty thing into me, and you have to keep bringing it up!” She pushed her eyes together until a semblance of wet that could be mistaken for tears formed. “I’m telling the truth, Mommy!”

  Bernadette looked at her forlorn-looking daughter yet resisted the urge to go envelop her in her arms as she did every time she scraped a knee, lost an animal—even if it was an ant—or shed a tear.

  “Melody, for twenty-five years I prayed for God to send me a child. I endured nine excruciating months and a painful cesarean to bring you into this world. But as God is my witness, if I find out you’re lying to me about this rape, after I’ve asked all these many times just to tell me the truth, I’ll do like the Father and say, ‘Depart from me, I know you not.’”

  Bernadette walked slowly to the bedroom she’d shared with Clyde Anderson for those twenty-five years. She shut the door and then locked it. For a moment she just stood there, staring at the last piece of evidence sent in the anonymous package.

  “Lord Jesus, help me, Lord Jesus,” Bernadette repeated several times. Finally she reached for the DVD, walked to the twenty-five-inch console from where she and Clyde mainly watched three things: the news, The Price Is Right (even though she thought it a form of gambling), and Sanford and Son reruns. Her favorite character—the tall, bibletoting, God-fearing Aunt Esther—could still illicit a laugh with her powerful, “Watch out, suckah!”

  Bernadette’s arthritic hands curled around the disc as she slid it into the DVD player Clyde had bought her two years ago for Christmas. She reached for the remote and pressed PLAY. Within minutes, her worst fears were realized. She could barely make out the dim figures on the screen, but she would recognize her daughter’s voice anyplace, anywhere.

  “Yes.”

  “Baby, I got a lot right here. You have to be sure you want it. Do you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Lord have mercy, Jesus,” Bernadette moaned. She clasped her hands to her chest as tears rolled down her face.

  “Now, listen,” the voice on the tape continued. “I’m not going down for no rape case or some extortion or some bullshit. So say it nice and loud. And tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “C’mon, yes, you do. ‘I want you to … you know. Do me.’”

  “Jesus!” Bernadette covered her eyes, but the words on the tape hit her heart like a fist.

  “No, I don’t know. Now spell it out!”

  “I want you to f-u-c-k me!”

  Bernadette stumbled over to the player and blindly pushed at buttons until the movie stopped. She could take no more. Falling back on her bed, she let the tears flow freely. She’d prayed to God that he would forgive her for her sins, but it looked as though the sins of the mother were being visited upon the child. She covered her ears with her hands as she tried to drown out the voices playing inside her head. Voices from more than forty years ago.

  “Bebe, you in here?”

  “Is that you, Tyrone?”

  Tyrone climbed up into the attic. “You know it’s me, girl. And I ain’t got much time. Now show me what you flashed up at my window yesterday.”

  “What?” she asked in an innocent voice.

  “Why you playing dumb? That what I saw when you laid down on the grass without no panties.”

  “What did you see?” Bebe said, enjoying the chase and Tyrone’s discomfort.

  Sixteen-year-old Tyrone was like a bull at a rodeo ready to crash the gate. “You know, girl, that sweet-looking poontang.”

  “What am I going to get out of it?”

  Tyrone laughed. “Whatever you want!”

  This conversation had been the beginning of a string of men Bernadette had entertained in her young teenage years. Looking in all the wrong places for love, acceptance, and the things her parents couldn’t afford. Sex had been an easy way for her to get all three, if even for a moment. Sex became a drug, an aphrodisiac, a necessity.

  Bernadette’s heartbeat increased, and she grabbed at her chest as the memories continued.

  “You been with that boy again, huh?”

  “No, Mama.”

  “Get in there and take your clothes off. I’m getting ready to beat the hell out of you. No child of mine is going to practice fornication!”

  Bernadette’s mother had beaten her to within an inch of her life that day with a corded switch and, when it had shredded, an extension cord. Had it happened in today’s time, her mother would have been arrested. But back then it was “spare the rod, spoil the child,” and in Mississippi back in the fifties and sixties, they’d beat you for what you were getting ready to do.

  That’s why when she’d found out she was pregnant by the boy for whom she’d taken a beating, she knew her mother could never find out. Her mother was a staunch, upstanding member of the community, head of the usher board and faithful church member who, after her husband had died, had vowed to remain married to the Lord until the end of her days. Her mother would not understand why Bebe had done what she had done. Would not, Bebe was convinced, know anything about love. So she’d had a back-alley abortion that had torn up her insides. It was therefore a miracle from God that years later she had become pregnant again. And when she had found out she was pregnant, it put a song in her heart. That’s why she’d named her daughter Melody.

  But now the song of joy was one of sorrow. And while her mother’s influence had given Bernadette her strict, biblical interpretation on all things sexual, which precluded her from seeing any joy in the act or any use for it besides procreation (she and Clyde hadn’t had intercourse since Melody was born, and Bernadette acted like she didn’t know about Josephine, his mistress of the past fifteen years), that was where her resemblance to her mother ended. She wouldn’t beat her child. But she wouldn’t support her in being wrong either. If only she’d gotten this package last Wednesday instead of this one, before she’d resigned as a member of Kingdom Citizens and organized the Sunday protest outside the church. “Haste makes waste,” her mother had used to say. The saying wasn’t in the bible, but it was the truth.

  Bernadette reached for the tissue on the nightstand. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and straightened the collar of her floral-print dress. There were a few calls she needed to make, a few things she needed to do. With a weary heart but a made-up mind, Bernadette pulled herself off the bed and headed for her purse and her address book.

  58

  Remember That

  Hope sat at the dining room table looking as if she were back in college. She wore a light pink warm-up, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was surrounded by books, papers, sticky notes, and files. With legs up in an adjacent chair and crossed at the ankles, she was engrossed in her second reading of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Hope may never win any mother-of-the-year awards, but it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t tried to be prepared.

  She was about to turn on the television when the elevator door opened. Her eyes widened when Cy walked in carrying a large 3-D mock-up of their dream house, the one that was supposed to have been a surprise, but which was now a totally open and collaborative effort between Hope and Cy.

  “Baby, come look!” Cy said, his eyes sparkling. “Stan is on his game, baby. This mock-up is exactly what we put on paper.”

  Stan Connors was the architect Jack had recommended to design the Taylor home. He had more than lived up to the hype.

  “Look, baby,” Cy said as he rubbed his woman’s ever-widening bottom. “The veranda wraps around the entire house. And this gate here, where it ends,” Cy opened a miniature replica of a gate that
actually swung back and forth, “is the entrance to the backyard and pool area. It’s even better than I envisioned.”

  They spent the next half hour poring over the mock-up for their ten-thousand-square-foot, seven-bedroom, ten-bathroom home that combined elements from several architectural styles: contemporary, Italianate, Spanish, and chalet.

  “Are you hungry?” Hope asked. “I think I’ll grab a bite.” She rose from the table. “Ow!”

  Cy was on his feet in an instant. “Baby, what is it, what’s wrong?”

  Hope was almost doubled over. “I don’t know, it feels like a cramp. Help me to the bathroom.”

  Cy picked her up and carried her into their master suite. As soon as she pulled down her pants, fear jumped into her heart. Blood covered the lining.

  “My baby, Cy, what’s wrong with my baby!”

  “We’re not waiting to find out. Let’s go!”

  Within minutes, Cy was breaking speed limits as he headed toward St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. En route, he conversed with their doctor, Vimba Chanakira, who tried to keep Cy calm and get him to slow down. Hope sat in the other seat trying to manage the pain with rhythmic breathing. As soon as they pulled up to the emergency entrance, Dr. Chanakira was there with a stretcher and assistants who whisked Hope inside.

  Cy didn’t want to leave his wife’s side, but Dr. Chanakira insisted. “Please, Cy. We need to be focused in there. You’ll only be a distraction.”

  “But what can I do?” Cy was near tears.

  “Pray,” was Dr. Chanakira’s response before she hurried through the double doors.

  Cy whipped out his phone and punched in Derrick’s number. “Man, you need to pray with me. I’m at the hospital. Hope’s bleeding. We can’t lose the baby!”

  Derrick knew the words calm down would be useless and insensitive. So instead he went straight to prayer: “Heavenly Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And we believe that it is your will, God, for Cy and Hope’s child to come through this trauma by your grace and mercy. So we ask now, dear God, to calm this storm, we utter the words of our Lord, peace be still, into this situation… .”